The Lucy Burns Institute seeks to help keep government open and accountable. One of its projects isWikiFoia, think the Freedom of Information Act. WikiFoia‘s homepage explains, its primary goal "is to build a comprehensive and collaborative how-to guide to provide very practical guidance on open records requests at the state and local level."

But there’s much more to WikiFoia. One example the site highlights, “We're interested in collaboratively building a list of transparency reforms to suggest to cities, counties, school districts and state agencies.”

Amy Gahran at Poynter Online (website tagline: “Everything you need to be a better journalist”) reviewed WikiFoia in her May 2, 2007 column. Gahran wrote, “I think this is a great idea, and it'll be interesting to watch this project. Since many journalists know a great deal about open records, FOIA, and sunshine laws, I encourage you to share some of your expertise via this wiki. If you've never wiki'd before, this is a constructive and low-pressure way to start.”

The Lucy Burns Institute is an associate member of the State Policy Network. In SPN’s January/February 2007 newsletterLBI wrote that the organization was named after "the American suffragette and women’s rights advocate, who lived from 1879 to 1966."

As for its mission, LBI seeks to "help citizens identify and combat waste, fraud and corruption occurring within local taxing entities such as cities, counties and school districts; promote awareness about taxpayer-funded lobbying and campaign efforts conducted by local and state taxing entities; enhance understanding of the ways in which taxpayer-funded lobbying may lead to the promotion of special-interest agendas over the public good; and conduct research and issue public policy studies regarding ways to enhance ethics, transparency and accountability at local and state levels of government.”